The Debt

[SomeRandomDude]

The point is that "slowing spending" is better than "not slowing spending because nobody can get along." Ideally, we cut spending and balance the budget, but misguided stands on principle = stalemate = nothing happening = economic collapse. I feel for the Republicans, but I fear they've been too swayed by the tea partiers. And I understand the Democrats, but they've got to cut some of their pet projects in order to get spending under control.

[FM]

Brazil had a pretty huge international debt. I don't know if it applies to you guys, but the internal debt here was the bigger problem, although international debt gets more screen time. Anyway, thing is, Brazil is one of the countries with the highest tax rate in the world (seriously, you wouldn't believe how much we pay in taxes), and is corrupted to the core, meaning a huge chunk of that money up and vanishes, and we were still able to sit down, re-evaluate and pay the international debt in a bit more than 4 years, while it seemed impossible a few years before. And the U.S. is a much more productive country in terms of money, which basically goes to show that it's not done simply because the people responsible for guiding the nation are not interested in doing it - pick your reasons. Also, having basically two major political parties (ok, ok, three, but in all fairness...) means the attrition war is pretty severe there, to the point that I wouln't be surprised to see one party letting the country nuke itself just to prove the other party was incompetent. Pretty scary, actually.

[SomeRandomDude]

Well, yeah, pluralist countries do have an advantage there. (I'm all for pluralism, I think the U.S. should have gone for that a while ago).

The thing is, the United States has built into the government tons of Sunshine laws, meaning everything is open for scrutiny, to the point that even classified documents are leaked to the press. So the populace is allowed to know everything that's going on- and corruption hasn't really been able to take hold. At least, not in the sense you would think. The threat here in American is pork-barrel spending- meaning there's not so much embezzlement as there is Congressmen going out of way to secure money for pet projects that their constituents like. Like, say, Iowa getting corn and pork subsidies, and such stuff. It's eerily similar to the bread-and-circuses phenomenon of the collapsing Roman empire.

By far the biggest money drains are welfare and medicare- welfare taking to the form of essentially government handouts to anyone who is unemployed. The Republicans largely oppose welfare spending, while the Democrats have been highly in favor of it, and this has been one of the major dividing points on the debt issue. The Democrats wouldn't cut welfare/medicare spending, while the Republicans wouldn't raise the debt limit (which was necessary to keep the government operating at the current level that it's going).

Which is the third, by the way? Because I only really see two major political parties. :S And I live here.

[FM]

Well, you did have the Green Party as well a while back, didn't you? Is it dead already?

[SomeRandomDude]

Oh the Green Party? Yeah...so since America's a first-past-the-post-system, we have a number of "third parties." Essentially, they get a marginal percent of the vote, and since they can never get a majority, they never get elected. So they kind of get ignored.

The Green Party's one of those, as is the Constitution party, the Libertarian party, etc, etc.

The way third parties are "successful" in the United States is to snag enough votes to throw off the margin. For example- if a third party gets 5% of the vote, and a major party wins an election- let's say Democrats 48% vs Republians 47%- then the 5% of the vote could have swung the vote to a 52%-48% victory for the Republicans (or at lest to a 49-48 if they'd accommodated 2% of the party). The Republicans then adjust their policies to try to accommodate the third party. That's unfortunately about the only way that third parties can have their voices hear. Its why I favor a pluralistic system, but my views are an infinitesimal minority in the United States. In the mean-time, I back third parties anyways because I view both major parties as corrupt, even though if I had to, I would lean more Republican than Democrat.

[FM]

I see. Thanks for the explanation! Do you have a Communist party? Just curious, because we actually have 2 in name, and probably 1-2 more in ideology (not Communist ideas, but straight out Communism), which I find kinda funny given the current political (and economic) system we have, so they end up relegated to a similar aspect here to that of the Third Parties in the U.S.

[SomeRandomDude]

Yeah, barely. It's tiny enough that nobody cares.

[Gil-Estel]

But how about the military as being a drain? Not to poke or to get into a nasty debate again, but I am wondering whether the US is cutting in those funds as well, since there is no country in the world that spends so much on defence as the US is. I know here in the Netherlands there are major cut backs, in the UK some equipment, that had been bought and never used, is brought to the scrapheap, just because the maintenance is way to expensive.

[Air Power]

There are some military cuts, though not as much as some would like (small compared to the total military spending).  If we actually pull out of the Middle East, we'll save far more just by not having as many National Guard/Reserve personnel on active duty deployments.

As it stands, all branches of the US military are trying to get rid of personnel (primarily officers) in order to make ends meet.

[Craig_The_Scotsman]

The military could probably remove several off its off-country base sites to help reduce costs as well. For instance, having a base in Germany seems rather unnecessary in this day and age to me.

[Air Power]

Again, if we weren't at war . . . Ramstein/Landstuhl (in Germany) is a major medical facility in support of the wars in the Middle East.  Basically, the field hospitals in the desert stabilize serious cases and send them to Germany for major surgery.  That facility can do basically anything that they could do states-side, but is ~8 hours closer to where people are getting hurt, which makes it far more effective as a medical facility.

Most other bases in Germany are combined bases (meaning that we share them with NATO or at least one other country).  Is our participation in NATO worthwhile post-USSR?  I think so in terms of fostering cooperation and sharing information about terrorist groups, but perhaps we could reduce our NATO-aligned manpower.

In any case, we still, as a people, expect our military to be ready to do anything that needs doing at a  moment's notice.  Whether it is providing aid to tsunami-struck Japan or removing a mad-man from power in Lybia, the military's ability to handle these tasks quickly depends on having assets nearby.  Only when/if we're ready to step down as global military leaders will we be able to shutter the overseas bases and bring everybody home.

[Craig_The_Scotsman]

To clarify, I do personally support NATO, but I believe restructuring is in order: A reduction in NATO manpower oversees would probably help financially in some marginal way at least. The U.S.'s allies are that for a reason (in Europe anyway), and with terrorism being a global threat, I believe confidently can be entrusted to keep current multinational facilities in order without U.S. personnel present. (That being said, multinational training exercises and wargames are excellent.)

In any case, I think it's evident that having no major military commitment in the Middle East would ideally be the best condition for the U.S. (though I'd hope they would continue to support endeavors such as Libya that require less overall, but worthwhile and significant, commitment). It's entirely possible (I think, though I'm no number-crunching expert) for the U.S. to remain a dominant military power even with some form of solid spending cutbacks.

[SomeRandomDude]

A critical aspect of U.S. culture (at least in theory, as far as practicality goes, well...) is self-sufficiency. The United States is very keen on being able to handle its own affairs, and not have to rely on anyone else. This is a part of what Washington talked during the founding era, when he cautioned against entangling alliances.

Consequently, the U.S. is more likely to spend more on a military than work with allies, as she doesn't want to be dependent. But then again, she's dependent on China economically so yeah, whatever.

That, plus us being at war, means defense cuts are unlikely.

[mille1212]

The time has come to do what is right regardless of political affiliation or personal benefit.  It's time for the government to spend within it's means and to quite putting our children's future at risk just to satisfy the things that it wants for today. 

The American people are ready.  It's the politicians, whom are supposed to represent us, who are not.  Cuts are coming and they will be across all spectrums when they do.  The 2012 elections will be the beginning of some massive reforms. 

IMHO or course...

A critical aspect of U.S. culture (at least in theory, as far as practicality goes, well...) is self-sufficiency. The United States is very keen on being able to handle its own affairs, and not have to rely on anyone else. This is a part of what Washington talked during the founding era, when he cautioned against entangling alliances.

Consequently, the U.S. is more likely to spend more on a military than work with allies, as she doesn't want to be dependent. But then again, she's dependent on China economically so yeah, whatever.

That, plus us being at war, means defense cuts are unlikely.

[Craig_The_Scotsman]

The time has come to do what is right regardless of political affiliation or personal benefit.  It's time for the government to spend within it's means and to quite putting our children's future at risk just to satisfy the things that it wants for today. 

That would be what's called responsible government, IMHO!: People (in general) at this point in time, I believe, are too concern with immediate satisfaction to think long-term and properly plan for the future, and it's reflected in our governments world-wide.

A critical aspect of U.S. culture (at least in theory, as far as practicality goes, well...) is self-sufficiency. The United States is very keen on being able to handle its own affairs, and not have to rely on anyone else. This is a part of what Washington talked during the founding era, when he cautioned against entangling alliances.

Consequently, the U.S. is more likely to spend more on a military than work with allies, as she doesn't want to be dependent. But then again, she's dependent on China economically so yeah, whatever.

It's very true, but I believe that self-sufficiency is a principle that's probably over-stayed its welcome (and, as you pointed out, hypocritical economically, which has been the case eternally anyway). It's more a matter of pride that of necessity or wisdom in this age, which unfortunately can't bode well.